Taps for Memorial Day

Dear Reader,

I hope today finds you getting a reprieve from your mourning-- maybe a picnic, or a day at the beach. Or time with friends and family who know your story and are willing to walk this journey with you through the highs and lows, the tears (obviously) and the laughs. Yes, widows do laugh!  

But there's often that current of sorrow right beneath the surface. Eventually we learn that joy and sorrow can co-exist. We don't need to choose just one. I can't help but think Memorial Day illustrates such an existence out for us. We parade and picnic and swim and travel. And we also pay our respects.

Perhaps today is meant to convey that an entire nation can feel grief with you in one way or another. If we grieve much because we loved much, then today's a day that it will shine from sea to sea. Today's a day of national mourning. A day to be solemn, to go to the cemetery, but then-- to barbeque! Because another way to show our respect for our departed loved ones is to fully live!  To laugh and run barefoot, burn marshmallows in a campfire and lick melted chocolate off your fingers.

How can we do that? Because no matter how long a shadow grief casts over life, our good Lord is bigger and we are not alone.

So when you hear a soldier playing "Taps" today remember the last line, "God is nigh." Say a prayer to thank God for His presence and the freedom we have to acknowledge Him. And then thank a soldier or veteran you see today--thank him not only for his own efforts, but because he's a representative of the ones that you can't see who are in Arlington and countless other graves all over the world.

Thank their wives and widows, too.

And then grill an extra hotdog with all the trimmings.

Blessings on you and prayers for the world,
♥ ferree